I love this amazing circle garland I created out of old felted sweaters. Lately I am really enjoying using many white and cream as the accents in my living room. It is hard to resist colour, but worth it when I can restrain myself. I had a pillow project in mind when I bought these three sweaters at a second hand store a few weeks ago. I started out by felting them, which means you can leave a raw edge and it won’t fray, just like regular felt. To create felt you need to find wool sweaters, and for these which are a little extra special, I also used some with other animal fibres, including a blend of cashmere and angora. Here they are before.

To turn the sweaters into felt, you wash them in your washing machine with hot water, and dry them in your dryer on high heat. I read a few on-line tutorials which suggested you wash them in a pillow case to collect the fuzz that is created and can clog up your washer, and also throw in a few golf balls. I thought I’d try it this time.

After the wash, I was amazed by the amount of fuzz in the pillowcase. I was also amazed at how felted they were, they shrunk a great deal, and the felt that was created is far thicker than any I’ve had in the past with just a simple hot wash without the pillowcase and golf balls.

I have been admiring the paper garlands I’ve seen on many blogs lately that are created by stitching simple paper circles together with your sewing machine. I have been wanting to try it, but feared that my OLD, slightly temperamental sewing machine just wouldn’t be able to handle the spaces, and that it would turn into a knotted mess. I love the cream fuzzy felt so much, and thought that cut into circles and sewed into garland it would make a delicate garland reminiscent of snowballs. I had to try it, and it worked!

I started out tracing several small sizes of circles on my three different sweaters, which all made slightly different felt, some thicker, some fuzzier. I used a small container, a spool, and a penny as my patterns. I have to say that the penny looks cute, but was difficult to sew because it is so small.

After a lot of cutting!

It was time to sew. You start stitching the first circle and continue stitching after it feeds through the machine for a few seconds, then you stop the machine and lift the foot to feed in the next circle. You stitch it, and continue on again, and just repeat that over and over to your desired length. I love the look of a random pattern, so I choose the size of the circle at random, and varied the length of space between circles, but you could follow a pattern, and or, count how many seconds of space you stitch to create a pattern.

I love how it turned out, especially the way it actually looks soft. I think it does kind of look like snowballs.

I added it to the fireplace mantel in my living room, see the basement family room mantel here. A little tip for attaching a garland to your fireplace without having to leave nail holes in the wood is to use suction cup hooks.

This fireplace holds my Christmas glitter house village. I will be sharing the village, which I made last Christmas entirely out of old cereal boxes, later this week, but here’s the sneak peak.

This project really was simple, and I’d love to try it for a party with coloured paper in circles or in a shape that matched the party theme. The possibilities are endless! Give it a try.

Merry Christmas!

This post is linked up at these link parties: Tatertots and Jello, Under the Table and Dreaming, The DIY Showoff Holiday Party,The Shabby Nest, A Little Lovely, Be Different Act Normal, I Heart Naptime, Tinsel & Company, 504 Main, Beyond the Picket Fence, and Funky Junk Interiors.

I have been making a few felted wool flower brooches, and hair bands to sell at my sister’s store La Petite Fleur, and I needed a way to better display them.  One morning on a little trip to Value Village, I came across a styro foam mannequin head.  Odd, but useful to me, so I paid my $2.99 and brought it home, knowing it needed a little make-over, but that it would be perfect for displaying the hair bands.  I also used an old tray, for displaying the pins.

The tray is from the dollar store, and while I was working on the Yellow Dessert Table, I painted it bright yellow thinking I might use it as a serving piece.  I didn’t use it, and it’s been in the basement on a shelf for awhile.  I wanted a shallow tray, and thought it would be perfect. 

I decided to cover the head and the tray with simple torn brown paper.  I ripped up some brown butcher paper into small pieces, and applied them to the tray and head with some watered down glue.  I simply painted the item with glue, stuck on the paper, and painted over it again with the glue.

Here is the finished product, displaying the handmade felted wool flower brooches, and hair bands.

I filled the tray with black turtle beans, for texture.  I love the way the white flowers look against the black.

Maddie wanted to model her hair band, I think it’s so cute with her new hair cut, I can’t guarantee yours will look quite this good

The brooches are $19.95, and the hair bands are $24.95 available at La Petite Fleur in Uxbridge, or shipped to where ever you are, at an additional charge.  I think they’d make a cute stocking stuffer.  I think I’d like a pink one, is it bad to make your own stocking stuffer? Santa can use the help, I’m sure

Merry Christmas!

This weekend we held our Women’s Ministry Christmas Party, at church.  Last year we did a potluck, this year, something a little different, we ordered in Chinese food.  Chinese food demanded red and gold decor, so we did red and gold Christmas decorations with some Asian accents thrown in for fun.

We started with one long table for everyone.  It was layered with simple white cloth table cloths from the dollar store, and red runners.  I love that you can now get real material, rather than just plastic at a super reasonable cost, and they are washable. On top of those, these fabulous white orchids in a beautiful gold container from Home Depot.  I told you a few projects back that I had an idea in mind for my red dog wood twigs.  I removed the little stakes in the plants that help hold up the blooms, and replaced them with these beautiful branches.  I love the red colour.  

We also included some red votives, and a scattering of gold Christmas balls.  Above the tables, we hung a long rope, and attached red Chinese lanterns at varying heights.  This works really well in a big hall-like room to bring the ceiling down a little and make it feel a little more personalized.

At each place setting we started with the church’s plain plates.  We had three different favours for the ladies to choose from, there were make-up bags, change purses or little notebooks, all covered in beautiful Chinese fabric.  I picked these up months ago, on a shopping trip to Buffalo, in Target’s $1 bins.  As I always say, plan your theme and shop early, you’ll be amazed at what you can find!  We used simple paper red napkins, but I created a fun napkin ring with Chinese newspaper and some red satin ribbon, and a fun pair of chopsticks. We included one other fun favour.  We purchased inexpensive already prepared fortune cookies.  With new tweezers, one of the ladies removed the fortunes and replaced them with our own custom Christmas message, and a scripture.  They were then packaged in cute plastic bags, and tied with ribbon to coordinate with our colours.  Everyone seem to really enjoy their little take-home favours.

We decorated the tree with simple red and gold Christmas balls, and used other gold decorations on some of the other tables.  One really simple idea, that could fit with any Christmas colour scheme, was using clear glass vases and filling them with pinecones decorated in glitter in our red and gold colours.

We started the evening off with some fun Christmas trivia games, and offered the highest scores some simple prizes to choose from.  We had a wonderful dinner of takeout Chinese food.  It really is a great way to do a large group event with no stress!  Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, and the wide variety.  We offered punch to drink, and I wrapped water bottles with some red wrapping paper, and more of the Chinese newspaper. 

After dinner we had a wonderful word of encouragement as one of the ladies shared the story of her Christian journey with us.  Then we moved on to some beautiful desserts, tea and coffee, and finished with a carol sing.  It was a really fun evening, and seemed to be a really relaxed atmosphere, as we shared simple take-out food, and each others company. 

The idea for this party, actually came from a party I hosted last Christmas.  When I felt a little stressed about hosting family for Christmas Eve, I came up with this idea of dressing up simple take-out food, and I have to say that the whole family really enjoyed it.  It was no more expensive then hosting a holiday meal with roast beef, or turkey, and it was certainly way easier!  I enjoyed decorating with a twist, and making a few really special desserts, without killing myself with shopping for and cooking a big dinner.  When I did this party at home, I was able to use white cloth napkins, a layer of red tissue paper, then the newspaper and raffia, and red chopsticks.  I also used some beautiful red and gold paper cranes, and hung them in the dogwood branches in the orchids.  I love how it turned out.  The store where we purchased the cranes originally didn’t have them anymore, so we didn’t use them for the Women’s Ministry event, but if you had time you could make them yourself.

Another fun centre piece idea I had was putting small potted poinsettia’s in cardboard Chinese take-out containers.  Hope you can think of ways to make your own Christmas events as stress free as possible too.  Merry Christmas!

Last year I stumbled upon this great idea at Alpha Mom to make a life size cardboard gingerbread house for the kids.  I thought it would be great as a playhouse in the basement over the holidays, and my kids do love it!  We invited some friends from out of town to join us for a gingerbread day, and the fun began.  We did do a little prep before they arrived.  The first challenge was finding great big boxes.  I actually found mine on Craig’s List, someone had got some new furniture, and couldn’t bear to throw out the great boxes, but had no use for them himself.  Well I had a great use for them, so my husband picked them up one night after work.  Then we set to work cutting the boxes, there is a good pattern on Alpha Mom, you use two boxes per house, one for the house, one for the roof.  We made two houses, so our friends could take one home with them.  They fold flat for easy transport and storage   After they were cut out, we painted them gingerbread brown, and left them out in the garage to dry. 

When our friends arrived we put the kids to work cutting and painting gingerbread men, candy canes and gumdrops to decorate the houses with.  And of course, they needed a little glitter too. We also added some “icing” detail in white to the houses.

While the paint dried, we had fun making real gingerbread houses.  We bought the pre-made kits, where all you have to do is put them together and decorate.  I have to say they sure are easy!  The kids loved making them, and it helped them wait for the big ones.

After the paint was dry, we attached the candy cut outs with a glue gun, and the real fun began; play time!  This is the one our friends took home, a little smaller and easier to fold up and put in the back of their mini-van.

Here is the one we made, set up in our basement this year.  When we were done with it last year and putting all the Christmas decorations away, I just folded it up and stuck it up against the wall in our storage room, to dig out again the year.  The girls were so excited the night we put it up this year, I’ve never seen them clean up their play room so fast to make room!  This year we also added some Christmas lights.

Each side is a little different, with lots of windows, and doors on each end.

Inside we put a small table and two chairs, a little Christmas tree, and got it all set up for a Christmas tea party.

This was a time consuming, but really easy project, and I have to say that my little girls just love it.  We finished the day off with a pretty little gingerbread boy tree ornament for our friends and us, so that every year as we put it on our trees we’d remember our gingerbread day together and how much fun it was.

Merry Christmas!

This post is linked up at Blue Cricket Design, Ladybug Blessings, Beyond the Picket Fence, Somewhat Simple, Tatertots and Jello, Under the Table and Dreaming and Skip To My Lou.